The Dangerous 4th

In some ways, the Fourth of July is the
perfect kid's holiday. Noise is central to the
celebration, and so is danger in the form of fireworks. Each
year's Independence Day
festivities are preceded by warnings about potential injury from
improper use of fireworks.
So it was in earlier Nebraska days. At the turn of the century,
the threat was not only from
injuries, but an injury-related disease rarely seen today: "lock
jaw."

In 1906, the State Medical Society appealed
to the public for help in preventing deaths from
lockjaw (tetanus). "No words or space need be wasted to
emphasize the folly of the use of
highly explosive fireworks, and when they are permitted to be
used by children, such practice
certainly becomes a crime against which the strong arm of the
law should be wielded with
emphasis.

"Especially deplorable, besides the
crippling of many children, are the deaths from lock jaw,
from injuries by toy pistols, giant crackers and other fireworks,
because most of these deaths
are owing first to the wanton practice of using deadly toys and
secondly because those injured
are not immediately attended to by a competent surgeon.

"The people are especially warned
that penetrating wounds, similar to those cause by a nail, if
soiled by the dust of the street or the dirt of the barn-yard
are very dangerous, because the
dust and dirt of these places contain quite often the germs of
lock jaw; and these germs, if
grown into a wound from which the air is excluded, will rapidly
multiply and cause the
terrible disease tetanus, and almost invariably death precipitated
by the most horrible
convulsions.

"If, therefore, law and parental discipline
cannot prevent the use of toy pistols, giant
firecrackers, and other deadly fire works, then, upon injury,
the child should be quickly
brought to the family physician who,knowing the great danger
of punctured wounds in these
cases, will unhesitatingly and thoroughly convert those wounds
into open surfaces to every
part of which outside air may have access, the only means which
will, with thorough
antiseptic, prevent the growth of the lock jaw germ and hence,
save precious lives."